Which Router for highest speed with BT ADSL2+ Internet?

There is currently no fibre in my area because the phone lines are so bad. Openreach has informed me that FTTP is due in around 4 months so probably the first quarter of 2022.

I moved to BT ADSL2+ in August from Sky. Openreach damaged my line and left me with a none working line or broadband. It took them a couple of days to fix it and they switched my line. This gave me a better attenuation of initially 45.0 but today 43.5 down/27.0 up previously 53/27 not 100% sure it was 27 but I believe it was the same even with a worse line. The current SNR Margin is 22.0 up which is where all my upload speed is disappearing to / 5.9. On Be Broadband I was using a 3 dB profile.

The BT Smart Hub 2 gave me pretty poor connection speeds of around 5.5Mbit/s 468Kbit/s and those speeds are well down on what I had with Sky with an inferior phone line....6.5 to 7 Mbit/s and 798 Kbit/s. Sky took my connection from Be Broadband where I had a good 7 Mbit/s 1310 Kbit/s with my previous phone line.

Would any other router work better with the DSLAM chipset that BT uses which I believe is made by TI. I have tried my speedtouch router which worked very well with Sky but did not improve my speed on BT broadband. The info on the TI chipset I got from the speedtouch router and DMT tool.

Can anyone recommend a cheap/used router? I do not need Wifi, I disable it and use ethernet. I do need to be able to adjust the SNR to adjust my speed and being able to disconnect the router from the internet to get a new IP address using my PC which I can do with the Speedtouch would be helpful. Support for VPN's and USB ports might be useful although not essential.

Would any other router improve my speeds? Something which is known to work very well with BT internet and provide the best and most stable connections? Something that I might find used on eBay?

We need to see the actual stats please, as it isn't always clear which direction you are referring to. The only thing I'm clear on is that you seem to be worried by lower attenuation.

Attenuation is, in non-scientific terms, (to stop some pedants that like to have a go at me), the rate of loss of speed due to the length and quality of the line between you and the exchange. The lower the better, as it means you are getting a stronger signal.

As for Be Broadband, that was probably the best ever ADSL2+ supplier. I was on O2 which used that network.

Upload sync speed also comes in three flavours, IIRC up to 448kbps, up to 872kbps, and (unlimited) up to about 1.2Mbps. Be Broadband gave the third. BT AIUI defaults to 448kbps. You might be able to get 872kbps on request.

Until recent FTTP upgrade, I was using a 8800nl r2 router on TT Adsl2+. It has the ability to adjust the SNR, increased my speed by 2Mb from 10 to 12
However, as bob has said, information from router would be useful as aid to check your line.
The router can also be used for basic FTTP.
If you are interested, you can have for cost of P and P

Edited by flippery (Wed 29-Sep-21 14:51:35)

Billion are the best router no doubt about that!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Billion-8800NL-R2-Wireless-...

A good, used Billion router would certainly be a good choice. It might be interesting to force ADSL2 modulation (rather than sync with ADSL2+) with a Billion and see if there is a reduction in the upstream SNR margin and increased upstream sync rate. However you may see a slight reduction in the downstream sync rate even with a SNR margin of 6dB. If there is success with the upstream SNR margin after a resync you could try changing the downstream SNR margin to 3dB and some increased downstream speed should be seen and hopefully the ADSL2 line will be stable.

Good luck.

Yes, it's I agree it's worth your pointing out that at lowish ADL2+ speeds ADSL2 can be faster and more stable.

In reply to a post by Mr_Wonderful:

I moved to BT ADSL2+ in August from Sky. Openreach damaged my line and left me with a none working line or broadband. It took them a couple of days to fix it and they switched my line. This gave me a better attenuation of initially 45.0 but today 43.5 down/27.0 up previously 53/27 not 100% sure it was 27 but I believe it was the same even with a worse line. The current SNR Margin is 22.0 up which is where all my upload speed is disappearing to / 5.9. On Be Broadband I was using a 3 dB profile.

My Sig does show the upload attenuation which was around 27 to 27.5 dB. The figures in my Sig are for ADSL2 and not ADSL2+ which showed a higher attenuation of around 53 dB and 52 many years back while with another ISP.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

We need to see the actual stats please, as it isn't always clear which direction you are referring to. The only thing I'm clear on is that you seem to be worried by lower attenuation.

I am not worried about the lower attenuation. When I first saw it, Openreach was outside my home waiting for me to check it out. The connection speed was quite a lot lower than I had with Sky which was a concern but the lower attenuation made me think that higher speeds should be possible. It has not turned out that way unfortunately. With such low speeds, every little helps. Streaming anything is extremely borderline ATM and was not perfect at 7Mbit/s.

I must point out that the figures in my Sig are for ADSL2 and not for ADSL2+ like I am forced to use ATM. On Be* and ADSL2 always worked better for me.

Product code:Smart Hub 2
Serial number: <REMOVED>
Firmware version:v0.27.06.04290-BT
Firmware updated:Fri Aug 13 15:38:43 2021
Board version:R01
GUI version:1.74 12_11_2020
DSL uptime:0 days,00 Hours05 Mins32 Secs
Data rate:448 Kbps / 5.696 Mbps
Maximum data rate:1.164 Mbps / 6.272 Mbps
Full Fibre (FTTP) Mode:Off
Noise margin:22.0 / 6.4
Line attenuation:27.0 / 44.0
Signal attenuation:0.0 / 44.0
VPI/VCI:0/38
Modulation:G.992.1(DMT)
Latency type:Interleaved
Upstream error control:Off
Downstream error control:Off
Data sent / received:0.1 MB Uploaded / 0.1 MB Downloaded
Broadband username: <REMOVED as a precaution>
BT Wi-fi:Activated
2.4 GHz wireless network name: <REMOVED>
2.4 GHz wireless channel:Smart (Channel1)
5 GHz wireless network name: <REMOVED>
5 GHz wireless channel:Smart (Channel36)
Wireless security:WPA2 (Recommended)
Wireless mode:Mode 1
Firewall:On
MAC address: <REMOVED>
Software variant:-
Boot loader: 0.1.7-BT (Thu Nov 30 09:45:22 2017)

BT Wi-fi:Activated

Why is this activated when Wifi is disabled in Smart Hub Manager? I want this as disabled as it can possibly be. I do not trust wireless because of the dangers involved with EMF. I do not use any wireless gear including mobile phones.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Attenuation is, in non-scientific terms, (to stop some pedants that like to have a go at me), the rate of loss of speed due to the length and quality of the line between you and the exchange. The lower the better, as it means you are getting a stronger signal.

Yes, I think you might of misunderstood my previous message. I am aware that lower attenuation is better and usually provides higher connection speeds. Unfortunately it does not seem to translate perfectly when different equipment and chipsets are involved.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

As for Be Broadband, that was probably the best ever ADSL2+ supplier. I was on O2 which used that network.

I thought that O2 kept certain customers, people who had contracts which suited them but they sold the rest to Sky.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Upload sync speed also comes in three flavours, IIRC up to 448kbps, up to 872kbps, and (unlimited) up to about 1.2Mbps. Be Broadband gave the third. BT AIUI defaults to 448kbps. You might be able to get 872kbps on request.

That is Interesting. With Sky for most of my time with them I had an upload connection speed of 606 kbps and after some trouble with my line where my down speed dropped to 1.5 Mbitps my upload jumped to 798 kbps just B4 I switched to BT. Those would be inside the second band but that still had a fairly high SNR Margin of around 10 to 12.

From your above posted stats:

Data rate:448 Kbps / 5.696 Mbps
Maximum data rate:1.164 Mbps / 6.272 Mbps
Modulation:G.992.1(DMT)

Note the modulation!!!

In reply to a post by 4M2:

Note the modulation!!!

Well spotted (For others, see this link)

For the OP, the "BT WiFi: Activated" is not controlled in the Hub manager, but in your BT account as described.